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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”